Pads of flexible paper sheets sometimes called scratch pads or writing pads have long been available in various sizes, with various numbers of sheets, and in different configurations including rectangular and other peripheral shapes. The sheets in such pads can, optionally, be printed with indicia including lines, pictures, or various written information which may include, for example, the names of persons, companies or corporations, or which can provide a form to be used by a person or a business (e.g., a form that can be filled in to advise a person of a phone call, or a form that can be filled in to order a product or to enter a drawing).
Such pads are often made by forming large master sheets that are either printed or unprinted, assembling the master sheets together into a master pad with a stiff back sheet as the bottom most sheet, cutting a plurality of pads of a desired size from the master pad through the use of a shear or die, and then applying a padding compound (e.g., a water or organic solvent based padding compound or a hot melt adhesive padding compound) along edge surfaces of the pads. Individual sheets can then be removed from the tops of the pads by peeling them away from the padding compound. In some such pads (typically with a large amount of sheets that form a pad generally in the shape of cube) graphics for purposes such as advertising or decoration are printed along exposed edges of the sheets in the pad and along the padding compound adhering the sheets in the pad together. Such printing will have a different appearance along the padding compound than along the edges of the sheets, which can be undesirable.
Pads of flexible paper sheets having bands of pressure sensitive adhesive on major surfaces adjacent edges of the sheets that adhere the sheets together in the pads have been available for some time under the trade name "Post-it" (TM) brand notes from Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, St. Paul, Minn. Such pads are available with the bands of repositionable pressure sensitive adhesive all along edges of the sheets positioned at one side surface of the stack. Additionally, such pads are available with the band of pressure sensitive adhesive on each successive sheet in the pad along an opposite side surface of the pad as is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,306 (Smith). This latter pad structure facilitates dispensing of the sheets of such pads from dispensers of the types described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,306 (Smith), U.S. Pat. No. 4,653,666 (Mertens), and U.S Pat. No. 5,080,255 (Windorski). Pads of either of those types can have graphics printed on the edges of the sheets along all of their side surfaces and those graphics can have a similar appearance on all sides of the pad. Providing the band of pressure sensitive adhesive on the sheets in such a pad adds expense to the pad, however, and for some purposes that band of pressure sensitive adhesive on sheets removed from the pad is not needed, or can even be undesirable.